Avoiding controversy is balancing act when writing solar bylaw

FAIRHAVEN — Town officials are hoping to avoid controversy similar to one in Dartmouth with a new solar bylaw draft written by William Roth, director of Planning and Economic Development.

ARIEL WITTENBERG

FAIRHAVEN — Town officials are hoping to avoid controversy similar to one in Dartmouth with a new solar bylaw draft written by William Roth, director of Planning and Economic Development.

The draft solar bylaw submitted to the Board of Selectmen Tuesday would require the Planning Board to use "as-of-right" siting regarding commercial solar farms, a standard that has come under heat in neighboring communities.

As-of-right siting is required by the state for towns hoping to comply with the Green Communities Act, which gives grants to towns with bylaws that encourage alternative energy development. Under as-of-right siting, the development of a solar farm is allowed to proceed without specific town approval as long as it follows state performance and design regulations.

"If you have as-of-right siting, you don't need a special permit to build solar," Roth said. "As long as it's on land that meets the bylaw's requirements — like being a certain size — you're ready to go."

As-of-right siting has been a point of contention in Dartmouth since February, when it allowed Con Edison Development to plan a 9,000-panel solar farm on land close to the Hixville historic district. The dispute is ongoing as Dartmouth officials review a rewrite of town bylaws.

In order to avoid a similar controversy in Fairhaven, Roth's draft bylaw includes a "site review process" to accompany the as-of-right siting.

Under the bylaw, developers would have to submit a plan describing the nature of the site and surrounding areas. Large-scale commercial and municipal ground-mounted solar panels would have to be located on land greater than 5 acres. Additionally, the bylaw would require solar structures to be "screened from the view of persons not on the parcel."

"It would still be pretty impossible to deny an application, but this way we could review the actual plan and tweak it in order to avoid issues," Roth said.

Roth wrote his draft of the solar bylaw at selectmen's request. At their meeting Tuesday night, selectmen gave approval for the bylaw process to move forward. The bylaw will have to be discussed by the Planning Board at an open hearing before being voted on at Town Meeting to take effect.

"Right now, we have no bylaw in place," selectmen Chairman Brian Bowcock said. "Dartmouth has had a lot of controversy on this issue, so we wanted to make sure we draft this carefully so as not to run into the same issues in the future."